"Oh, hush. I'll warm up in a minute and you won't even know that I'm here."
"Not likely." Annice squirmed as the other woman began chewing on her ear. "Stop it, Stas. I'm tired."
"I missed you…"
"I missed you, too, but I'm tired."
"Can I welcome you home in the morning?"
"You can do what you want in the morning," Annice muttered, "if you'll just let me sleep now."
When she woke again, weak light shone through the space between the bedcurtains, enough to illuminate the woman propped on one elbow and staring down at her.
"Hi."
"Hi yourself." Stasya smiled and waggled dark brows. "It's morning. Welcome home. Remember what you promised?"
She remembered a cold body very clearly, but the rest only vaguely. "Stas…"
"Stas…" The other woman mocked and leaned forward. "It was witnessed by a bard," she whispered, breath tickling Annice's lips.
"Stasya." Annice shoved her aside as her stomach rose to greet the day. "Get out of my way. Now!"
"How long has this been going on?"
"I don't know." Panting, Annice sat back on her heels, steadying herself against the toilet. A while now."
Stasya leaned against the open door of the cubicle and frowned. "What do the healers say?"
"I haven't seen one."
"You are such an idiot. Why not?"
"I figured I'd see one when I got home."
"Fine. You're home. Are you finished?" Stasya stepped forward, bent, and helped Annice to her feet. "You can go see one right now."
"But I haven't talked to the captain yet."
"So?"
Yanking the chain that flushed water through the pipes with one hand, Annice secured her robe with the other. "In case you've forgotten, I just got back from a Long Walk; I'll be in recall all morning."
"Healers take precedence."
"But I'll likely have to sit around the Hall for hours before they can see me."
"Not at this time of the morning." Fingers locked around Annice's arm just above the elbow, Stasya propelled her down the corridor and into their rooms. "Get dressed," she commanded. "You're going to see a healer if I have to drag you, so you might just as well go comfortably on your own two feet."
Realizing that Stasya had made up her mind and resistance was therefore futile, Annice sighed and surrendered. "It's going to be a waste of time," she muttered. "They won't know what it is. They never know…"
"When was the last time you had your flows?"
"My flows?" Annice frowned as she shrugged back into her clothing. "Oh, come on, Elica, I can't remember that."
The healer rolled her eyes. "You're a bard. You can remember if you want to."
"Well…" The frown smoothed out as Annice slid into a light recall. "I was between Adjud and Ohrid. Four days out of Adjud and thirteen from Ohrid."
"How long ago were you in Ohrid?"
"Nine weeks."
"So you've missed two, almost three cycles." Elica pushed a carved wooden box out of the way and sat on the edge of her table. "Didn't you ever wonder about that?"
"I was on a Long Walk. I had other things on my mind."
"You shouldn't have."
"Why?" Annice's head came up and her tone sharpened defensively. "What have I caught?"
"You haven't caught anything," the healer sighed. "You're pregnant."
"You're WHAT?"
"Keep your voice down," Annice hissed, pushing past her. "Do you want the whole Citadel to know?"
Stasya hurried to catch up as Annice stomped down the corridor of the Healers' Hall. "You're kidding, right?"
"No."
"Well, how did it happen?"
"How the empty Circle do you think? The usual way."
"What about the teas the healers gave you?"
"I gave them to a woman who'd had seven babies in six years. She seemed to need them more."
"Very commendable, I'm sure, but none of her babies were committing treason in the womb." Together they pounded out of the Healers' Hall and across the courtyard. "Annice! Slow down. Where are you going?"
"I've got to talk to the captain."
"I'll say. Can you get rid of it, or has it gone too far?"
"I can. But I'm not going to. That's why I have to talk to the captain."
"This," Stasya said with feeling, as they raced up the stairs to the captain's chambers, "is what comes of sleeping with men."
Liene stared up at the young woman standing on the other side of her desk. Why me? she asked the Circle silently. Or more to the point, why her? "You're positive?"
"Healer Elica is."
Wonderful. The Bardic Captain closed her eyes and heard King Mikus ask in memory if she had known about his youngest daughter's boon. It had been a fair question. The old scoundrel had bloody well known she'd been after his permission to recruit Annice for almost a year. Practically every time the child opened her mouth, kigh flocked around her. Allowing that kind of talent to remain untrained would have been criminal. Even more so considering how badly Annice had wanted to be a bard.
Eyes still closed, Liene rewitnessed the old king's declaration and the new king's conditions. She'd strongly disapproved of those conditions, but the king had refused to listen to her counsel. The child had been only fourteen, so she'd decided to deal with both conditions and king later. As Annice threw herself into her studies, becoming less the princess and more the bard, later moved farther and farther away.
Later, Liene sighed silently, seems to have come home to roost.
The Bardic Oath stressed the responsibilities of power but mentioned nothing about celibacy, and Annice was not the first bard to conceive. While it didn't happen often—the healers thought it had something to do with Singing the kigh—babies had been raised in Bardic Halls before. Bards had even occasionally left to raise babies with nonbardic partners. Babies happened. Sometimes, they even happened on purpose. Personally, the captain rather liked having children around, although not to the extent that she'd ever thought of having her own.
She could hear the young woman fidgeting and reluctantly opened her eyes to meet a cautiously defiant gaze. "You do realize that, considering the king's edict, what you did was, to say the least, irresponsible?"
Annice tossed her head. "I didn't do it on purpose." Liene leaned back and slowly lifted one brow. "My point," she said, "exactly." When understanding registered, she sighed and leaned forward again. "I realize why you gave away the tea, Annice, although, as we've been importing it from the south at ridiculous prices to prevent exactly this situation, I'm sure you realize that I wish you'd never met the woman. The deed being done, however, didn't it occur to you to temper later actions?" A blush stained Annice's cheeks deeply pink in spite of color left by two quarters on the road. "It only happened the once. There just weren't any alternatives handy, and…"
"Never mind." A chronicle of spontaneous passion was more than Liene felt up to at the moment. "You're certain about the father?"
"Yes, Captain."
"And it's none of my business. Succinctly put. Annice's voice control was a credit to her training. "Do you feel any obligation to let him know?"
"No, Captain. It was a casual encounter. He'll have no interest in a child from it."
Because a difficult situation would be marginally less difficult if the father never knew, Liene was willing to go along with Annice's assessment. "And you're determined to continue the pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why?" Annice repeated, looking confused. "You're still within the healer's limits. Why continue when, considering His Majesty's edict, it would be easier—not to mention less dangerous—to terminate?"